Luke's Best Man
by Diane Langley
Summary: Why wasn't Jess Mariano at Luke's wedding? Sometimes the answer to a question is very simple and just a little sentimental. [Java Junkie; implied Literati]


Jess Mariano had always been a light sleeper, popping upright at any unfamiliar bump or thump, but Luke Danes had the only tread that didn't disturb him. Jess woke up not to the thud of shoes across the apartment floor but to a warm hand closing around his shoulder.

"Hey. Wake up."

Jess jolted, neck stiff and legs sprawled in front of him. He had fallen asleep in the creaky old armchair, book dropped off on the floor beside his kicked-off boots.

"What's wrong?"

The words escaped before his eyes adjusted, but he realized nothing could be wrong. In the dull lamplight, Luke smiled. Not a smile that warded off bad news or a smile of familial affection but a smile of contentment. He reached behind him and grabbed a stool, putting himself down on it. The motion was so familiar, an easy setup to genuine conversation. Luke had an outdoorsman's approach to the more skittish humans in his life: subtle, often with food as bait. For all his bark and bruff, the man's gentleness left the most indelible mark.

"Nothing's wrong." Luke confirmed what Jess already knew.

"So what brings you to your old apartment in the middle of the night, if not cold feet?" Jess sat up, scrubbed his hands over his face to find alertness.

"We're getting married in a few minutes. In the gazebo." Luke patted his hands up and down on his knees. The quiet fidget made Jess want to smile. "We're not big on spectacle…"

"Lorelai's not big on spectacle?" Jess could not resist the slight jab, but Luke ignored him.

"And we should have done this so long ago, so we're going to do it tonight and then celebrate it tomorrow."

"Okay. Let me get my coat."

Luke shook his head, extending his arm to catch Jess's shoulder as it moved forward.

"I don't want anyone to come." The words had quiet weight to them, and if they stung in the first few seconds, they quickly softened. Jess tilted his head.

"Okay." The monosyllabic affirmation was a question.

"Years ago, when she left me, I sat up in my diner with a giant hole in the window, and I tried to figure out what I was going to do, and I realized that nothing to me was real if she wasn't there. I could do everything out there, and none of it was going to matter without Lorelai." As Luke spoke, his voice took on new sureness, and Jess ignored the Polaroid snapshots laying themselves out in his mind, Gilmore smiles of his own that took his breath away and made everything else seem a little out of focus.

"So I loaded up my truck. Everything I owned. I packed suits and swim trunks and a leather jacket and two tackle boxes and went over to her house to go anywhere and marry her. I was ready to marry her anywhere. Boat, train, car…"

"Very _Green Eggs and Ham_ ," Jess muttered.

"And she had slept with Christopher. I hadn't moved fast enough, and she had moved too fast, and I almost lost her. Tonight, we're going to move fast, and she's going to wake some people up because she wants them there for her, but I'm…" Luke looked frustrated for a moment, trying to put words to the sentiments he was spinning. Jess wished he had a pen and a piece of paper; he wanted to try to create the words first, see if his brain could move fast enough to capture the human condition as it unfolded.

"I'm going to look at just her, and I'm going to promise to love her for the rest of my life. It's not about anybody else. I don't even need God to witness it. Just me and her."

If he had been jotting these ideas down on paper, he would have been wrong.

"I understand." Jess said the right thing, even as his chest tightened.

Luke stood up now. He put physical distance between them, a few extra inches, before continuing.

"I wanted to wake you up to tell you that if I was going to have anyone there tonight, it'd be you."

When Luke had called a week ago to say he was getting married, Jess hadn't been surprised to hear that he was going to be the best man. Who else could even fill that role in a wedding? T.J. had grown on them all, a harmless kook with a heart of gold, and Caesar had to work because Luke's diner closed for nothing short of cosmic interference. The request had been predictable. But this naked emotion - the simple fact that Jess was the person Luke most wanted to share this with - touched a soft, tender spot on his tough guy heart.

He wanted to put together words that could tell Luke that his angry childhood years of kicking cans and hating his dad stopped mattering when a crotchety diner owner pushed him into a lake. He wanted to tell Luke that it wasn't Rory who had made him want to make something of himself; it had been his uncle's angry rant about his wasted intelligence that turned a sparking flint into a firestarter. A pretty girl didn't raise him; Luke did, even after everyone else had written him off.

But after Luke's speech, Jess found himself speechless. The irony was not lost on him.

Jess got to his feet and reached up to take the baseball cap off his uncle's head. He tossed it into a nearby chair.

"Can't wear a baseball cap to get married."

Luke appraised him and then half-smiled again, shaking his head.

"Yeah. Thanks."

They went in for a hug at the same time, pausing at the moment they came together. Jess's throat joined his chest in tightening.

"Thanks for waking me up."

Jess managed to make five words say it all, and Luke patted his shoulder once again before heading out.

Through the window, the ceremony was simple, quiet, and the groom took the bride onto the empty dance floor. For Lorelai, Luke would dance. Jess watched Luke draw her in close, tuck her small frame against his, and even from a story up and a couple hundred yards away, even in reflected moonlight and twinkle lights, he could see their smiles. Elopement in the very small town where they lived. He marveled at the fact that even practical Luke could be swept up in fairy dust now and again.

When he finally turned into bed for the night, he could still hear the tinkle of crooning music and still see the magic of a Gilmore grin.

It wasn't Lorelai's smile that faded out behind his closed eyelids.


End file.
